Studio711

Ever since I arrived in Seattle with a motorcycle, I’ve been told about the Cascade Loop. It covers some of the most beautiful roads in Washington, but it’s also a big trip for one day. Today, I set out to conquer the loop.

You can see my basic route below. The actual Cascade Loops includes a run down Whidbey Island, but that would make a big day even bigger and I’ve traveled that road many times anyway. The highlight of this ride is going to be the northern stretch along Highway 20. That 5500 foot high pass is closed all winter long, and I’ve never been there.

The route is about 450 miles. I average about 50mph on long trips due to the need for frequent stops so that puts me at 9 hours. Factor in some extra sore muscles from a full day on the bike and I’m hoping to tackle this in 12 hours. I’m planning to Twitter my progress along the way so you can watch for updates on my feed.

I’m still undecided about whether I will come back through Stevens Pass or Snoqualmie Pass. Stevens is more scenic and gets me out of the hot weather on the east side of the mountains. Snoqualmie is 70mph interstate. I’ll make the call when I get near Cashmere. Interestingly it’s only 1 mile extra to go through Stevens than Snoqualmie, but I expect it’s about 15-30 minutes longer.

I set up a couple shortcuts on my website a long time ago, but for some reason I’ve never published them. It dawned on me that maybe other people would find this useful too:

• gadget.studio711.com: Redirects to the skiing sidebar gadget page
• video.studio711.com: Redirects to the video page (“videos” works too)
• photo.studio711.com: Redirects to the photos page (“photos” works too)
• moblog.studio711.com: Redirects to the photo gallery for the moblog

Eventually I’d like to enable you to type anything.studio711.com and if I haven’t configured a specific link for anything then it will do a search. I haven’t quite worked that one out yet.

There is a lot of TV content online these days from Hulu, CBS.com, ABC.com, etc. I don’t watch a lot of it though because I’m not a big fan of watching lots of content on my computer. I have a nice LCD TV with a good sound system. Why can’t I use that?

I recently downloaded the trial for PlayOn and ended up buying a license. If you have an Xbox360 or a PS3, this app will let you watch content from all kinds of online sources, including the ones mentioned above. The app runs on your PC and streams the content to your Xbox360. I used it last night to watch a bunch of episodes of Man Caves from Hulu and it worked exceedingly well.

Tim, Chelsea, Andy, Stephanie, Nick (an intern at Tim’s company), Tyla and I spent the weekend about 15 miles east of the summit of Snoqualmie Pass at Lake Easton State Park. We all convened at campsite 109 after work on Friday and crammed five tents onto the tent pad. The rest of the weekend was filled with cornhole, beverages, campfires, delicious food, and hanging out down by the water. The lake was beautiful, but the campground was very loud. I-90 was only a few hundred yards away. I guess when you try to cram train tracks, a lake, a campground and an interstate into a mountain pass, there’s not a lot of leftover room. It was great for a weekend trip considering how close to home it is(60 miles from my house.) On Sunday morning, we packed up and visited Mountain High Hamburgers on the other side of the interstate. It’s a Scherschel family favorite and made a nice end to the weekend.

Thanks to everyone for coming, and special thanks to Tyla for putting up with Nick and me talking about skiing all weekend. This winter he’s going to be living the dream: ski bum at Alta. Combine that with his lifetime full of 100 day ski seasons at Killington and I’m pretty jealous.

The next camping trip on the calendar right now is in late August when we take a trip out to the San Juans.

Photos are available in the gallery.

As you all know, Michael Jackson passed away proving once again that celebrities do die in threes. (Ed McMahon and Farrah Fawcet died recently too.) It’s weird to think that my kids will have very little idea who he was. I think it will be very similar to how I feel about Elvis. He was an icon to the generation before me, but he played very little part in my life.

I heard somebody say that Michael has a 50/50 legacy right now. Half the time you think about his incredible music, and half the time you think about his crazy antics and dangling his kid off the balcony. I’m guessing that, in the long run, the music will win out.

On our trip to Indiana, we stopped at Granite City for dinner. It’s one of Tyla’s favorites and I finally got to try the Idaho Nachos that I heard so much about. Last weekend we decided to try and make them for ourselves. I think they actually tasted better than the ones from the restaurant!

Ingredients

• 1 bag frozen waffle fries (we used unseasoned curly fries because we couldn’t find waffle fries)
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 3-4 strips bacon
• 1 small tomato
• Chives

Bake the waffle fries according to the instructions on the bag. Near the end of the baking, push all the fries into a pile and smother with the shredded cheese. Once the cheese is melted, pull them out of the oven and top with chopped bacon, diced tomatoes, and chooped chives.

Dip Ingredients

• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp curry
• 1/8 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and top with parsley flakes.

This recipe makes a lot of dip. I think will probably cut it at least in half (maybe even less) the next time we make it.

Bottom line: delicious! They will go fast.

Did you stay up until midnight (eastern time) on June 12 to get your Facebook URL? I did, despite a bad case of jet lag in Indiana. You can find me at facebook.com/benmartens. I set an alarm, got up, watched the countdown clock, and snagged it within the first thirty seconds. I wasn’t alone. It was a massive land grab. 500,000 people signed up in the first 15 minutes, 1 million in the first hour, and 3 million in the first 12 hours.

Why is it important? I don’t know. If Facebook really is around for a long time (the odds are against that) then it will be an easy way to send people to my profile. Since you only get one name and you can’t change it, it’s nice to know that I snagged the name I wanted.

Did you? If you haven’t yet, go to facebook.com/username and get your address. The odds are that it will never matter, but if it does, you’ll be prepared.

Kudos to Facebook for handling the incredible rush of traffic!